StarCrossed
Chapter 2: Agent
by Cain

Mystician Empire. Asellan Solar-System. Mysticia. Facinaturu.

Year: 323 A.A. Month: 5. Day: 10. Time: 1:02 P.M., Facinaturu Mean Time

"It's not fair!" Zade insisted, as she had insisted fifty or more times today alone. Zade was always up earlier than anybody else, and she'd spent many of her waking hours complaining and trying to convince her superiors of her skill, her intelligence, and most of all her need for independence. A partner would only slow her down.

Klend looked up from his desk. He was a large Mystic, still very muscular, even though he was starting to age. He hadn't used magic very often in his life, and as a result his pale, yellow hair was thinning when he was only one-hundred-fifty years old. His green skin had even gone a little grey. "Right. Not fair. You've mentioned that. Honestly, Zade, would you be complaining so much if he wasn't Human?"

Zade scowled, and Klend couldn't say that the expression didn't fit on her face. She had a nice face, well-shaped, but for some reason, maybe habit, maybe the bone structure, it was hard to imagine Zade smiling. Truth be told, she had a very pretty smile, but it was so very rarely seen that many regarded it as a myth. Zade's constant attitude of impatience, pessimism, stubbornness, and absolute disregard for things like social interaction had become a joke around the Academy before she'd graduated, as in "Yeah, sure. And Zade's going out with me tonight."

It wasn't that Zade wasn't good-looking. She wasn't exactly pretty, but she was quite attractive in other ways, especially if you could get past her coloring. Her skin was a dusty grey, but her wild hair, which was pulled back from her face with a single barrette, was bright red. She was quite tall (even if you didn't count her hair), not too thin or too fat, and looked very fit. Her eyes were dark, like staring into twin wells. Her face was sharp, and her teeth were very white. Her MIA uniform, a simple blue bodysuit with the five rank stripes, flattered her form, though she didn't notice. She was thin, presumably because she never had the time to eat well. She rarely wore a cloak or jacket, even in the coldest weather, because she always wanted to make sure that everybody could see she was an Agent. For the same reason, she refused to wear anything but her uniform even in great heat. It was rumored that her closet stocked only spare uniforms, and Klend for one believed it.

"Human or not, he's Class Six," Zade stated, as if ignoring the accusation would make it go away. "I'm Class Five, and I was at the top of my class at the Academy-"

"So's he."

Zade nearly choked. "Say what?"

"He's at the top of his class, too. Perfect grades, all across the board." He took another look at the file. "According to this, he even tutored others. He especially excelled in battle training."

Zade rolled her eyes. "Uh huh. Of course he did. He's a goddamned Human, after all. He doesn't have any magic, so of course he's good with simple weapons."

"That's just it, Zade," Klend replied, ignoring the slight profanity. It seemed to be Zade's one vice. "He's not just good with simple weapons, he's good with all weapons. We gave him swords, guns, spears, gauntlets, whatever we could think of. We even tried to see if he'd be any good handling ground-to-air cannons and missiles. It didn't even take him two days to learn any of them."

Zade's scowl was unabated. "Fine. So he's a fighter. That's nice, that's real nice. He can kick the shit out of the crooks, but can he catch 'em? I doubt it."

Klend shrugged. "Actually, he's the best detective the Academy's seen since... well, since you. Very few mysteries hold him for long. He even knew my name before he met me. Hell, he even knows the Dean's name, and I didn't know that until I'd been in the MIA for ten years. This guy's a godsend, Zade, Human or not."

"So what you're saying is you've found someone that's better than me, huh?" Zade kept her voice carefully under control. Being upstaged was something she'd never imagined, let alone being upstaged by a Human. She certainly didn't know the Dean's name.

Klend sighed. "No, Zade, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is that we might have found the Human equivalent of you. He's smart, he's strong, and he's fast, but he's no Mystic. He has no magical talent. Couldn't even acquire the gifts. He made it through the maze of Luminous easily, but he still doesn't have a spark of magic in him. He aced the 'Ether Study' classes, but it's like teaching a fish about clouds. He knows all about Ether he'll ever need to know, but it's not something he can ever use. Period.

"Also, he doesn't know anything about history. Anything. Humans usually don't have a great grasp of history 'cuz they die so quickly, but this guy literally doesn't know a damn thing about the Empire. I'm not sure he is from the Empire. He certainly has an accent that I don't recognize."

Zade frowned, concerned. An MIA Agent not from the Empire? "Wait. Why'd you let him in? He could be a fucking Dominionite! Or one of those Humans from the other side of the Dominion, those Unionites! We've never had any trouble from them, but you never know. You should have looked into his past. Or even gotten a telepath to get something out of him."

"And would you have had us do the same with you?" Klend asked sharply, and Zade had no answer. The MIA didn't ask its Agents about their pasts. A great number of Agents had actually been proven escaped convicts. However, an Agent had complete amnesty from all crimes committed before joining the MIA... as long as they did their job. An effective incentive. Some well-known Agents had even been turncoats, Dominion-born aliens who hated Humanity. "Spy or not, he's valuable, and we need good people in the field, maybe now more than ever. The Dominion's been way too quiet recently. I don't trust it. None of the higher-ups do, either. Berial have been clamming up, lately, though some are as glad of that as others are worried. That damned Freespace movement is causing trouble all throughout the Empire. We need someone who can take another point of view on all this, a non-Mystic point of view. A Human.

"And that's where you come in, Zade. This guy's good. Very good. Maybe too good. But you're as good as he is, I think. Maybe better. Even if you're not, you still have magic, and he doesn't. We need this guy, I believe, but if he's not loyal... Even Toolst doesn't stand a chance against him, and that's saying something." Klend suddenly looked very tired. "What I'm saying, Zade, flat out, is that if he turns out too good to be true, we need you to deal with him. We don't have anyone else who can."

Zade frowned, considering. She looked up at Klend, unmoved by the idea of killing her partner. "Do I finally get a ship?"

Klend held out a key.

Day: 13. Time: 9:23 A.M.

Rakin walked through the Mystic Investigation Agency Headquarters, and those who recognized him whispered to those who didn't. This was the young man who'd surprised everybody at the academy. The strong one. The smart one. The one that nobody had seen coming. The Human. There were only seven Human Agents in the MIA, and he was one of them. Which would tend to give someone a swelled head, unless you were a prince and the hero of an entire planet besides. Rakin was something of an extraordinary person, though he rarely saw it that way, and tended not to be easily impressed anymore, not even with himself.

In fact, most of Rakin's life had been one rather extraordinary event after another. His parents were mighty heroes. He'd met the mysterious Spekkio, who'd allowed him access to this even more mysterious power. He'd been given immortality by someone named... Vale? No... Valiod! That was it. He didn't remember Valiod very clearly anymore. That, he believed, was because of another extraordinary event: the fact that he'd lived on an uninhabited planet for seventy-six years.

The soldiers who'd found him had had no trouble believing that he was about one-hundred years old (if he remembered correctly) until he had mentioned that he was Human, and then he'd been quickly imprisoned and interrogated for a few hours. Through yet another extraordinary series of events, he had escaped and disabled the ship so it couldn't follow him. A few months' wandering finally brought him to the Empire homeworld, Mysticia, and then his plans had been set in motion.

I have friends I need to find, he had thought the day he first walked into the MIA Headquarters. I don't remember them very well, but I know they're out there. If they're anything like me, they'll be in the middle of every major event in the Empire. And how better to find them than being sent to every major event as soon as it happens?

He'd had to go through the MIA Academy, but that hadn't been very hard; having survived on Ventosus (or Wind-world, as he had called it) for three-quarters of a century, he wasn't easily frightened, even by his classmates, who were all either very dangerous, Anti-Human, criminally insane, or combinations of the three. Still, he'd managed to befriend some of them. With the notable exception of the other Human at the Academy, a young man who called himself Acid, who had instantly taken a dislike to Rakin, for no reason that Rakin himself could fathom.

Most Agents gave themselves names of their own, often because their real names were on "Wanted" posters. Rakin had no idea what Acid's original name was, but he had to admit the name fit. Rakin himself had needed no alias; by some strange coincidence, his real name, "Rakin," happened to be the Mystician word for "Ransom." Everybody had thought "Ransom" an odd name, but nobody had argued. However, since he couldn't remember his real last name, he made one up: "Felone." It was actually the Elosian word for "Rainbow," but nobody knew that, of course. A rainbow had some sort of connection with his past, Rakin knew, but he couldn't remember what, exactly. "Rakin Rainbow" was a bit of a frivolous name, he thought, but to everyone else it sounded like "Ransom Felone," and they all liked it.

Today was to be his first day as an actual Agent, and Rakin was a little nervous about it. Well, to be honest, he was nervous about his partner, this "Zade." Rakin hadn't spent much time around women since... well, since he was honestly sixteen years old. He was much older now, mentally if not physically, but he didn't have the experience in social relations to go with that time. He had plenty of experience in survival; he had, after all, survived for seventy-six years on a planet where almost every living thing tried to kill him on a daily basis. But his experience with women was very, very limited.

Also, he had been told that Zade was a no-nonsense Mystic, and no great lover of Humankind in general, which somewhat dampened Rakin's optimism. Specism, as such race-to-race discrimination was often called, was a problem Rakin had dealt with the whole time he had been on Mysticia, and he didn't relish having to work with a Specist every day. He didn't want a Mystic who'd be coming on to him the whole time, of course, but he'd like to not have to deal with bigotry all the time. He shrugged. Maybe she wasn't as bad as people thought.

And then he stepped through Klend's door (Klend was an Investigator that Rakin had known since he started in the Academy) and his hopes fell as he saw Zade. He could immediately tell several things about her. First of all, "Zade" was her real name. He didn't know how he knew, but he did, much as he knew that she didn't watch holovision, except to watch races. He also knew, somehow, that she had a secret crush on Fedrin Larze, the oddly-named (for a Mystic) movie-star, enjoyed scrambled eggs, hated wasting money, kept a knife under her pillow and another one in her hair, and didn't much like Humans.

Rakin was now used to this flood of information he received in a person's presence, something he'd had to get used to after his long solitude. He almost always knew their name, unless they were really secretive about it, but everything else was just about random. The more time he spent with Zade, the more he'd know about her, whether she told him or not. He could find out more if necessary, but he didn't like to pry into other people's lives. He couldn't help it if sometimes the knowledge seemed to force its way into his mind, but he could at least keep the delving to a minimum.

He'd been in a few situations where he'd known and said things he shouldn't have, and getting out of those situations had been difficult to say the least. How do you explain the fact that you know the name of every guy a woman's ever kissed? Or that you know some of a guy's private poems? He'd once been singing one of those poems out loud, not knowing where he'd gotten it from, and he'd only succeeded in explaining away that one by claiming that he'd talked to one of the guy's ex-girlfriends (which was true, as far as it went). He'd then managed to get away without further questioning.

He and Zade appraised eachother for moment or two, and Rakin had to admit he was impressed. Just the way she stood, Rakin could tell that she was dangerous. She looked a moment away from activating her T-Blade and effortlessly scything through anything that got in her way. She had the ease of somebody who knew that she could kill everybody in the room, an ease which Rakin himself found easier and easier to adopt. However, she also had the proud posture of the truly military mind, somebody who'd follow any order in the name of rank advancement.

Speaking of rank, she had five silver stripes running from her right shoulder to her left hip and back up her back to their origin, which signified that she was Class Five, one rank above the lowest. From what Rakin had heard, she had completely skipped Class Six. She'd only been an Agent for about a year, and probably would have increased in rank already if there had been anything to do. Everything had been quiet recently, and Rakin was certain that Zade was itching to prove her worth with a mission.

He was also certain that she resented having a partner, let alone a Human partner. Zade was the kind of person who was determined to get ahead, to show that she was the best, and she wouldn't appreciate having to share the glory, if there was any glory to be had. If there wasn't any glory to be had, Rakin had no doubt who she'd blame.

As he was busy being impressed and worried, Zade was busy being grudgingly impressed and thoughtful. He was tall, as tall as she was (not counting her hair). He had a well-shaped, almost noble face. His hair was cut short enough that it naturally spiked up a little, but by the way he kept running his fingers along his head, his hair must have once been longer. He wasn't very thin, but that was because he was quite muscular. It wasn't so much that his neck was thicker than his head, but he looked strong enough that you certainly noticed. He had a small scar on his right cheek.

His eyes, though... There was something about his eyes. When his eyes met hers, she was almost struck breathless. Not because she was attracted to this Human, even if he was a good-looking example of the race, but because his eyes were the eyes of someone who was very, very dangerous. He didn't look angry or hateful, but there was a certain... desperation about him. And a sense of world-weariness. Whatever you've been through, his eyes seemed to say, I've been through worse, and I'm expecting more any minute.

His eyes also said I'm not afraid of you. There was nothing rebellious in this assertion. He had weighed her strengths and weaknesses, and in the end he didn't consider her a threat. She nearly frowned. She'd change that. If it came to him against her, he didn't stand a chance. Or so she told herself. She wasn't as sure as she'd once been.

"Well," Klend abruptly began, nearly making the two Agents jump. Nearly. "Zade, allow me to introduce you to Ransom. Ransom... Felone, I believe." Klend wasn't used to giving surnames, since Mystics rarely used their own. Zade nodded curtly, but didn't say anything. Klend, in an attempt to get rid of the awkward silence where Zade was supposed to be speaking, continued "And this, Ransom, is Zade, your new partner."

Surprising both of the Mystics, Rakin bowed deeply, every inch the Prince. Then he rose, and he was once again simply an Agent, smiling amiably. "Hello, Zade. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I've heard many things about you."

Zade didn't smile. She didn't blink. She made a very slight nod, but that was it as far as gestures went. "Have you? Did you hear that I was undefeated in every T-Blade tournament at the Academy? Did you hear that I was instrumental in MysPol's solution of the 'Tumbledown' case? Did you hear that I'm completely unimpressed by bows, kisses on my hand, or flowers?"

Rakin blinked. "No... I'm afraid most of what I heard had to do with your directness. Guess they were right."

Klend chuckled then, but a glance from Zade silenced him. He cleared his throat, and looked down at the files on his desk. "Well, you'll have plenty of time to get to know eachother, I'm certain. And, assuming you get along," his tone of voice betrayed his fear that this was a rather large assumption, "it looks like you two will be our 'Dream Team.' As soon as we have something for you to do, we'll call you." He paused. "Ransom, you do have your PMD, do you not?"

Rakin shook his head. "I never got one. Not enough money."

Zade glared at Klend as if to say See what kind of idiot you stuck me with? However, Klend simply nodded, reached into the pile of paper collected on his desk, and handed Rakin a square, blue (the same shade as Rakin's and Zade's uniforms) disk about the height and width of a Rakin's head. "Here it is: your Personal Media Device. You know how to use it?" Rakin clearly didn't, so Klend continued, "Well, there's a beginner's tutorial. Just press 'Power,' then press the 'Aid' key."

Abruptly, Klend stood, and saluted them both. Rakin, surprised, saluted briskly back, and Zade managed a salute as well. Klend lowered his hand. "Good luck, Agents."

Time: 9:54 A.M.

"Whoah..." Rakin said, slightly awed. "You mean this is our car?" It was about eight feet high, six feet wide, and about twenty feet long. It had two energy cannons conspicuously placed right on front of it. It was sleek, shiny, smooth, and very, very black.

Zade scowled as she tried to figure out how to unlock the thing. "It's not a car. It's a Blackbird."

Rakin nodded sagely, absorbing this information. "I see... And that means... what?"

Zade sighed irritably. "It means that this is a spacecraft, not some dinky hovercraft. We can go to other planets in this. First, though, we have to get into the fucking thing," she muttered, and kicked the side of the black ship.

"Let me try," Rakin insisted. Zade grudgingly agreed, on the grounds that she wasn't having any luck herself, and would love to see Rakin try. Rakin took the key and, frowning, began to run his hand along what he assumed was the left door. There was a windshield which turned along the Blackbird's corner, almost seamlessly, so it was hard to tell where windshield ended and door-window began. Rakin had recently become very used to hovercrafts, by the simple fact that he'd taken many a shuttle and hoverbus, trying to make his way around Facinaturu.

Facinaturu was not the strange, magical, mysterious, living place it once was. Well, to be accurate, it still was most of these, but it was now also home to the highest technology anywhere in the Empire. Buildings of gleaming steel and other, stranger metals stood side-by-side with structures that looked as if they'd been not built so much as grown. Chateau Aiguille alone remained as it had been for centuries, a gigantic tree/palace, in which Lady Asellus occasionally dwelled, when she could be bothered to return to her homeworld. The most important buildings of Facinaturu, the Tower of Science and the Tower of Magic, stood on opposite sides of Chateau Aiguille. These two buildings held many of the most secret, powerful, and dangerous secrets of the Empire. Rakin personally thought that this simply made them less secret, powerful, and dangerous, since anyone who was interested knew exactly where to look, but he figured that the really important stuff must be sequestered elsewhere, where nobody would think to look.

All of these thoughts only distracted Rakin from the task of finding an entrance to the Blackbird, and in the end he just gave up, kicked the door, and shouted "Open, dammit!"

Surprisingly, it worked.

The door, window included, silently slid out of sight as lights came on inside the craft. Rakin glanced back at Zade, shrugged, tossed her the key, and stepped inside. There was more than enough room to stand, if not enough to move around very much. Directly in front of him, on the right of the craft, was what appeared to be the pilot's seat. To his right, in the back of the craft, were two seats. The one behind the pilot's seat had restraining devices, obviously for transporting captured criminals, and the one on the left was surrounded by machinery. Considering that he couldn't pilot the craft, or even drive a simple hovercraft, he decided to sit in the passenger seat. Nothing immediately happened, but then nothing seemed to actually be on in the craft.

Zade sat in the pilot's seat and once again resumed the search for somewhere to put the key. This time, she met with more success, and stuck the cursed piece of metal in a slot. It fit perfectly, and the slot immediately sunk into the surrounding machinery. Lights blinked on as systems came to life. The door slid shut, but the light filtering through the windows, not to mention the lights of the systems themselves, kept everything visible.

"Greetings," a voice suddenly announced, filling the small craft. It was a completely neutral voice, neither male nor female, inflecting no single syllable. "There are currently... two genetic signatures on the key. Do you wish to add more?"

Zade looked surprised. She obviously hadn't expected this. Rakin hadn't known what to expect, and therefore wasn't too surprised to actually answer the question. "Why would we want to?"

"Owners are recognized by genetic signatures, which are scanned upon entrance to this craft."

"So, in other words," Rakin said slowly, wanting to make sure he got it right, "If there's anyone else who will be piloting you, we should get them to touch the key and give it back to you?"

"Affirmative," the voice agreed. "You may add more signatures at any time you wish. Are you satisfied with the current number of genetic signatures?"

"Yes," Zade replied, pausing to glare at Rakin. "Anyone else had better be accompanied by me, or they don't belong in here. Got it?"

"Affirmative. Genetic signatures recorded. Greetings, Agents. Please state your names."

"Zade," Zade replied.

"Ransom Felone," Rakin said. "What's yours?"

The craft's computer considered this. "I do not presently have a name. My serial number is V-945-096-143. If you wish to give me a name, please do so."

Zade refused to even make a suggestion as to what kind of name to give a simple computer program, but Rakin insisted, and eventually ended up coming up with the name himself. "Rita," he said. "Your name will be 'Rita.' Okay?"

"Affirmative. I am Rita. Do you wish to assign me a voice or accent? I am designed to alter my speech patterns based on the way my owners speak, but if you have any preferences, they should be stated now."

Zade tried to convince Rakin that it was completely pointless and, indeed, stupid to give a computer a voice, let alone a strange name like "Reetah," but Rakin would not be swayed, and helped guide Rita through the different voices it could make. They eventually settled on a voice that was quite definitely feminine, somewhat husky, and enough to make Zade roll her eyes at how disgusting men in general were.

"Is this acceptable?" Rita asked. The voice had all the elements of a woman, and it sounded much like a voice Rakin remembered from somewhere in his past, but it remained emotionless. He sighed.

"Well, you said you'd learn. Maybe you'll learn how to sound better as we go along. It's okay, for now."

Zade made a clicking sound with her tongue. "Great. Now our Blackbird sounds like your dream girl. Are you done, yet?"

Rakin shrugged. "Well... I was thinking... Couldn't we come up with a better name than 'Blackbird'? I mean, it's so depressing."

Zade nearly growled. "Depressing. Great. Wonderful. Listen, Human, I don't give a flying fuck whether it depresses you or not. It's a Blackbird, alright? You can call it whatever the hell you want if you feel like it. Just don't bother me with this crap."

"How about 'Epoch'?"

Zade turned in her seat. "Were you listening to a damned word I said? It... is... a... Blackbird. End of discussion." With that she reached over to the controls and quickly pressed a succession of buttons and switches. Rakin's seat slid forward on its tracks so that he was sitting to Zade's left, still surrounded by machinery. Zade lifted off and flew off, trying to go fast enough that Rakin wouldn't have time to bother her before they landed. Rakin fiddled with the devices surrounding him for the rest of the ride, and didn't speak.

Day: 16. Time: 3:32 P.M.

Thyme growled as a scientist stuffed food into his mouth. If you could call it food. It was a protein gruel, designed to keep the prisoner alive during the next long imprisonment in the cryogenic stasis chamber. The gruel tasted like snot, looked like snot, and remained liquid, yet elastic, in that very special way that only snot does. The sad thing was that Thyme was so hungry that he ate it. Every last blob.

The two scientists, satisfied that he was properly nourished, lifted him from the chair by his arms, and began to pull him back along the way to his stasis chamber. Thyme would have fought them, if he could, but his muscles simply didn't want to respond to his orders. He could only assume that they had injected him with some sort of sedative before he'd awoken from stasis, to make him tractable. On reflection, he believed that it was a good idea on their part; he'd caused some trouble every time they let him out for his meal, and he couldn't blame them for wanting to take precautions this time.

Of course, they could have saved a lot of time by simply having him executed for rebellion, back before his world had been re-named "Mysticia." However, he was Thyme Oregano, one of the famous rebel hotshots, and Asellus no doubt found it amusing to have him sleep away the centuries as his world changed around him. Even now, he was surrounded by more machinery, here in a small prison not far from Chateau Aiguille.

When he'd first been frozen, Facinaturu had been a strange, magical place, but now it was a hybrid: magic and tech, sitting side by side but not really meshing. Thyme wasn't really surprised. After all, every time he was freed, he had a chance to read up on the events of the last few decades, and Thyme always read every last word on the... PDM? DMP? PMD? Well, whatever it was called, it certainly had held a lot of info., and he made use of it. The sudden formation of the Abandoned Sector had certainly been a surprise, to say the least.

Thyme was tired, very tired. He was a human, and he was only supposed to be twenty years old. However, it had been three-hundred and thirty-one years since he'd been born, and his world had changed greatly in that time. Mystics ruled the planet, and moved across the Galaxy in sudden leaps, through technology he had no chance of understanding. Planet after planet had fallen under the umbra of Mysticia. And, thought Tyme, If we'd stopped Asellus when she was still weak, none of it would have happened. I'd be dead by now, at rest, and so would Rose.

Rosemary Oregano, his sister. He hadn't seen her in centuries, although it seemed to him only weeks. He'd aged very slightly over his years of frozen imprisonment, so little that he didn't notice it. The only thing that seemed different about him, as far as he could tell, was that he was incredibly, maybe dangerously, thin. Plus, he was pale. Oh, and his hair hadn't been cut once, so that it hung down to his lower back. How long would it have taken to grow that long in real time? Six months? A year? How old was he now?

How old was Rose? She probably looked exactly the same as she had when he'd last seen her, still young and pretty, twenty-two years old. Age didn't touch Mystics, at least not if they used magic on a daily basis. Rose had always been in love with the idea of using magic, but by the time she'd been old enough to learn, all places of magic were already ruled by Asellus, and certainly not open to mere humans. And now she was... he shuddered at the thought... Half-Mystic. That damned Asellus had done... something to his dear sister, taken her as a "Princess," and now she was one of the enemy.

Thyme's fingers twitched at the thought. He was angry. He even managed to clench his fist. The scientists noted this. It meant that the sedative was wearing off. They'd have to hurry up and get him back into stasis. They came up to the door just as a man in black stepped out of it. Too surprised to ask for the man's clearance, the scientists simply stared at him.

He was tall, and reasonably handsome. He had black hair down to his shoulders, and a pointed chin. His eyebrows, lips and nose were thin and delicate. His eyes were dark. He wore a cloak, draped so that whatever was beneath could not be seen. And he was definitely Human.

The Human nodded politely at the two dumbfounded Mystic scientists. "Good day to you, sirs." That said, he silently turned and began to walk down the hall.

The scientists were at a loss. "Hey... Since when are humans allowed here?" one asked of the other as the cloaked man disappeared from sight.

"Beats me," replied the other. "But let's get this one back into stasis. We can report that guy later."

The door slid open as they stepped up to it, and then they all stopped inside the entrance. The stasis room was a wreck. Every cryostasis chamber was ruined, even the ones with prisoners still inside. Life readings of these prisoners were dropping quickly as the unfortunate people froze to death in their chambers.

The two Mystic scientists dropped Thyme. He fell roughly to the floor as they rushed to control panels, trying to save their prisoners' lives. Thyme could only stare at them. He couldn't even move his head. His arm flopped a little, but remained useless. Dimly, he could hear a faint, measured beeping.

Thyme's fellow prisoners were dying, and there was little the scientists could do to stop them on their ruined consoles. Thyme gave thought to the fact that they weren't looking, that now would be the perfect time to escape, that if he could just stand, they'd never notice that he was gone. But he knew better than that. He couldn't even sit up, let alone stand. That beep was still sounding, although a little faster now.

Thyme suddenly gasped sharply. "Oh, shit," he breathed, and struggled anew. Trying at least to push himself up and out of the path of the door, which couldn't close with his body lying in its way. He grunted and strained, unnoticed by the scientists. And still the beep came faster.

With a sudden grunt of effort, Thyme managed to use one arm to push himself back, out of the doorway. It slid shut, leaving him alone in the hallway with only the sound of his own labored breathing. Quickly, or at least as quickly as he could, he began to drag himself away, away from the door. He didn't have long now, he was certain.

The door slid open, and one of the two scientists stepped out. "There you are!" he exclaimed, and stepped forward to claim their one surviving prisoner, as Thyme could once again hear the beep rising to a stuttering crescendo.

That was when the bomb, hidden in the wreckage of Thyme's cryostasis chamber, exploded.

Time: 3:36 P.M.

It was a normal day at MysPol HQ. Detectives rushed in and out of the building. There was news of some new computer virus on the loose, a serious danger when all transportation depends on computer guidance. The report came to the police chief, and he looked over it, concerned. Something would have to be done about it.

He, however, was not the one to do something about it, for that was the moment when the entire top floor of MysPol HQ exploded in a ball of flame.

All across the city, bombs went off. Alarms sounded as innocents died abruptly or in the following flames. All Mystic Police and MIA Agents were called in to help deal with casualties, and to attempt damage control. Facinaturu's fire department was trying their best, but there just weren't enough of them. Nobody had foreseen the abrupt attack on the city, not even Rakin.

Rakin scrolled through the list of casualties and property damage on his PMD as he waited for Zade to arrive in the Blackbird. It seemed strange to him, the choices that had been made. MysPol HQ had been bombed, but why? Was it a terrorist action? If so, how did they get to the top floor? The other places seemed to have no pattern. Some were in business districts, some in housing districts. A grocery store. A PMD factory. A cryoprison. The bombs seemed to have been placed wherever the bomber could put a bomb. But how had they done it? And why?

And why, he wondered, had Chateau Aiguille, of all places, remained safe?

Time: 3:36 P.M.

The scientist had no time even to cry out before he was incinerated by the blast. Even if he had survived it, the following shrapnel would have torn him to shreds, and nearly did so to Thyme. Thyme himself huddled into a fetal ball as the fire raged above him. Small bits of metal ricocheted through the hall, some cutting his arms and back, but he remained largely unharmed.

Thyme opened his eyes. The hallway was scorched surrounding the door, but the wall itself had held strong. Shaking, Thyme managed to stand on his own two feet, though a little wobbly. His thoughts seemed slow and strange. The only thing he could think of, at first, was that any minute now, a hundred Mystics would come running through the hall to see what all the commotion was about. If they found him, he doubted he'd have a chance to explain that he hadn't been responsible.

Slowly, confusedly, he stumbled down the hall, in the direction of the black-clad man who now waited for him.

.

"I wish... I wish now that I'd understood. I never realized until recently, never really knew the truth: All life is sacred."
-Thanatos

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